Modern electronic displays for vehicles (such as aircraft, automobiles, marine vessels, or trains) display a considerable amount of information, such as vehicle position, navigation data, and terrain information. In the case of an aircraft, many modern flight deck displays (or cockpit displays) include a lateral view, generally known as a lateral moving map display, which is basically a top-down view of the flight plan that may include, for example, a top-down view of an aircraft symbol, terrain information, political boundaries, navigation aids and/or waypoint symbols, line segments that interconnect the waypoint symbols, and range rings.
Often, a pilot may pan the lateral moving map display to achieve, for example, a preferred forward planned path. For example, if the route of a planned trajectory extends west to east, the pilot may orient the map with North up and then pan the map such that the aircraft symbology is at the far left of the display since the pilot is less concerned about features to the rear of the current position of the aircraft than features and waypoints that are ahead of the current location of the aircraft within the flight plan.
In known systems, a user (e.g., a crewmember) may manually adjust the area displayed in the lateral moving map display by scrolling the map in either a lateral direction (e.g., up or down, left or right) or a cardinal direction (e.g., North or South, East or West), or by manually dragging the map to a desired area. However, in some situations, adjusting the area displayed on the lateral moving map in the proper direction can be difficult and/or not intuitive; e.g. when the lateral map is oriented in the direction of travel (e.g., heading up) or when the flight plan turns in a direction that is not evident by the current state of the lateral map display. In addition, it is difficult to adjust the lateral moving map display diagonally and/or in a non-cardinal direction. At times, the aircraft may even travel off the display without the pilot noticing, thus decreasing the pilot's situational awareness. In addition, repositioning the lateral moving map display undesirably increases the workload of the pilot.
Thus, it would be desirable to provide a system and method for determining a preferred or optimal position on a display at which the ownship or host aircraft symbology should be generated and graphically securing the aircraft (i.e. “sticking” the aircraft) to that position. It would also be desirable to provide a system and method for dynamically determining an optimal position on a display at which the ownship or host aircraft symbology should be generated based on a heading, projected flight plan, and/or changes to the flight plan.